7 STEPS TO CO-CREATING INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS
One of the most important stakeholders in your innovation and improvement efforts is often the person who’s least involved – your customer. Many businesses falter at getting customer input, stating that it’s too hard for them to reach the people they need to talk to. There’s also a deeper fear involved – that their customer […]
3 Steps to Achieving a High ROI on Your Innovation Dollars (Hint: Start with your Customers)
Are you skeptical of the return on investment (ROI) from innovation projects? Many of my clients are. Sure, they invest in incremental improvements – fix what is broken, adopt new technology to make their operation more efficient, train their people to increase their productivity. But when is the last time you actively pursued an innovation […]
Tips for Making Your Retail Business Stand Out [Worksheet]
Last weekend was Small Business Saturday. The retail shops along the main street of my small town entertained us by hiding elves on their shelves for customers to find – you had a stamp book full of stamps for every elf you found. My eight-year-old daughter participated gleefully and I went along for the ride, using it as […]
How to Continue your Small Business Growth beyond its Startup Years [Template]
Business founders struggle mightily the first couple of years in their business pitching their vision to potential investors, to new team members and to customers whose business they hope to win. They test and refine their story over and over again until it’s perfect, where within an elevator ride they can create an emotional connection […]
How 1 Simple Innovation Strategy Will Grow Your Small Business [Case Study & Template]
Small businesses have a strategy advantage over larger businesses because they have close contact with their customers, often on a day-to-day basis. This customer intimacy allows a small business owner to quickly adjust their service to better meet the needs of their customers, resulting in a loyal clientele. But often, the very thing that makes […]
Use Empathy to Guide Your Digital Transformation
As Jack rode his bike home from work that evening, he reflected on the meeting he attended at the end of the day with Kim and Celia. They had gathered to talk about using journey mapping in their innovation project. He had agreed to find a resource to help lead customer interviews and gather the […]
Will Journey Mapping Uncover Ideas for Innovation?
As the workshop came to a close, Jack reflected on all they had learned that day. The whole day had been spent on their customers – who they were and what their aspirations and challenges were. They spent the last hour working on gaps and workarounds, those pain points that indicated where they could help […]
How … and Why to Build Empathy for your Customers
This week I participated in a virtual dementia tour where I quite literally walked in the shoes of seniors with dementia. Having spent a lot of time in the last few years visiting seniors in their homes, many of whom had this debilitating disease of aging, I thought I had a pretty good idea what […]
Developing Empathy through Customer Interviews
Celia entered the room where their customer discovery workshop was being held. She hadn’t been able to sleep last night. She was filled with excitement for the innovation journey ahead but she also was worried – was this approach going to work? Would building empathy for their customers lead to new innovative ideas? Or would […]
Tips for Building an Innovation Culture based on Design Thinking
Your mission as a corporate entrepreneur is to find new customer problems that your business is uniquely positioned to solve. Unlike a startup, you are not alone in this endeavor. There is a whole organization full of smart, passionate people for you to tap into. This is where Design Thinking is the corporate entrepreneur’s friend […]